Abstract
Trying to reach the silence we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation - the more we strain our ears, the more intensively we feel to be drowned in a surrounding noise. It seems that silence is unattainable to human beings.
The monograph pursues the puzzle of perceptible silence in dialogue with contemporary authors: John Cage opened the question in his writing and artistic practice, analytically schooled philosophers fleshed it out in a form of a philosophical argument. The monograph offers a critical discussion of, especially Roy Sorensen's and Ian Phillips' arguments concerning perception and silence, including the problem of the latter's causal relevance or the lack thereof.
In short, the monograph demonstrates that silence, as a subject, takes us not only to the boundaries of 'common' and 'philosophical' thought, but incites us to rethink the very question of what is real what it means to perceive something.